Alpha and Omega
by Seleucus
Summary: A young man from Vault 101 is condemned to wander the Capital Wasteland in search of his father. In the battle for survival The Lone Wanderer learns that the true evil of Wastes is closer to him and he would expect. Rated M for sexual and violent themes in addition to strong language. I do not own the Fallout franchise or any of its content.
1. Emanation

The sun began to rise over the Capital Wasteland, its shine being turned brown by the nuclear mist that carpeted the debased metropolis. Buildings and monuments, which once would have shimmered with power, were left to slowly decay and return to dust. Beyond the crumbling city, a barren, grey landscape expanded into the horizon, a few dead trees the only sign of any former vegetation.

It was a brutal land, where every waking second was a battle to see the next. Yet even here fate still spins the webs of men's lives, and perhaps a man might emerge to shift the balance of the wild wastes. A paragon of hope perhaps, or maybe just a gifted rogue… Somewhere in the rugged outskirts of Washington DC the Lone Wanderer emerged.

A mole rat crept up to a wooden door at the end of a rocky trench. A human skeleton its target, as it started nibbling on the bones hoping to discover some nutrition. The creature was pleased to discover some bone meal to chew on. Unexpectedly, a low hush echoed from the wooden door and the mole rat stood up on its hind legs, sniffing the air to detect any predators. A loud clank suddenly sounded from behind the door, followed by a grinding metallic noise. Panic struck the mole rat and it hurried away from the scene, yelping on its way.

With slow, soft footsteps I approached the door. This was the first time I had ever walked on dirt… It felt like the longest walk of my life. I could hear the Vault door grinding shut behind me. When I finally reached the wooden door I hesitated to open it… and to enter the unknown. A few rows of light penetrated through decaying structure. I send one last glance back at the Vault door behind me. The big round metal door seemed eternally unmoving, as if it had never actually opened at all. _There is no going back, _I realized.

I grabbed the handle of the wooden door and pushed it down, the door slowly creaked open and I became immersed in bright light, as if I was being baptized in photons. Blind, I slowly staggered forwards, a hand shadowing my eyes. I eventually found a clearing and lowered my hand, presenting myself a view of Washington DC, the fallen capital of a fallen super power, the United States of America, coloured murky brown by the sunrise.

The wasteland looked like shit… yet I was utterly mesmerized by it. I stood there and gazed into the horizon for another five minutes, absorbing all the new sights, the new sensations. I suddenly realized that my eyes had watered over. I had read about everything I perceived, yet spending life in a vault had neglected to prepare me for this revelation. After drying my eyes with the sleeves of my blue jumpsuit, I began walking. I might be walking to a certain death, but I had never before felt so alive.

I wandered down from the rugged hill which covered the vault. I arrived at an eroded, winding road that swayed between the hills. I was met only by a few scattered car wrecks. I approached one of the automobiles, a rusty Corvega resting against a boulder next to the road. It had apparently been stripped clean of all useful mechanisms some time ago, leaving only the chassis, some bodywork and a side mirror behind. I looked in the side mirror, my wolfish face reflected back at me. _I look tired, _I thought as I sleeked back my dark brown hair. As I did so, I noticed that my knuckles had been severely bruised… _worth it. _Most of the other cars had met fates similar to that of the corvega. With no reason to linger, I pushed on.

I continued down the road and arrived at a residential neighbourhood… or what was left of one. Only a few of the houses still had their bare foundations intact. _Springvale _a sign read by the road into the town, below the name the population count had been stroked over and a 0 had been drawn up to correct it. I walked down the main street with rows of houses on each side, scanning for anything useful. I was not going to survive out here without food or equipment. I eventually spotted a footlocker partially buried in a pile of rubble within the remnants of a house, I approached. Upon further inspection I found that the footlocker was locked. At least itsuggested that the contents had not yet been conquered.

I sighed and started searching my pockets, eventually uncovering a screw driver and a bobby pin. Before proceeding with the operation I took a quick scan of my surroundings… an old habit. There was surely not a single soul around for miles, if at all. After confirming that I was alone, I inserted the bobby pin into the top of the warden keyhole on the footlocker, trying to make it correspond with all the obstructions inside. This task was harder than expected, I had only recently had to apply this unique skill again and I was subsequently quite rusty. Feeling that I had hit a good spot, I inserted the screw driver into the bottom of the keyhole to rotate it. After gently turning the lock, I hear a click. I rewarded myself with a deep satisfied breath before I opened the latches.

"What do we have here? A vault dweller?" A hoarse voice asked behind me.

My heart tried to escape my chest and I froze in shock. I slowly rose and turned to face my interloper. In the broken doorway to the house stood a man, whom I could only describe as a savage. The man was bald and dark eyed, it was hard to determine his complexion with all the shit smeared in his face. He wore an improvised armour, consisting mostly of cut tires and worn leather.

"What are you doing outside your precious vault? Looking for treasure?" The man's eyes were unnervingly vicious and I did not respond. Instead I wait from him to go on. "I have been keeping tabs on that box over there for days, only now was I going to crack it open."

Only then did I spot the crowbar resting in the barbarian's right hand. Subconsciously my hand had already moved to my holster and started stroking the grip of my pistol. I continued to repress a reply.

"What? Cat bit your tongue kid?" He asked sneeringly.

"Who are you?" I asked. I doubt it mattered who this man was, but I had to say something to demonstrate my ability to speak.

"Isn't it obvious? I am a fucking raider!"

"A… raider?" I enquired.

"Yeah. Here in outside world that means you are supposed to run away and shit your pants. No wait. It's the other way around."

It was growing increasingly obvious that the barbarian did not intend to renounce his claim on the contents of the footlocker.

I did my best to hide my fear, but my voice damningly cracked as I spoke. "Everything in the footlocker is mine to take. You can come back later to see if I have chosen to leave you anything." I realized it was strange that I was defending the unknown contents of an unknown footlocker, but some inner intuition conscripted me to secure it. Or maybe I was just having a bad day.

The barbarian's face became feral with indignant anger. He began growling and froth began to exude from his mouth. "Not gonna happen kid!" He responded through clenched teeth as he began approaching me.

Swiftly, I pulled out my gun and aimed it straight at the barbarian with undivided concentration. "_BACK_! _OFF_! You fucking degenerate!" My voice was firmer now, yet my fear was still audible.

The raider hesitated, fear of his own escaping his eyes. He spent a few seconds shifting his sight between my 10mm pistol and my face. Finally some feigned confidence returned to his expression. "Do you even know how to use that thing?" He sneered.

I slowly started lowering my gun, the savage's expression growing bolder in correspondence. I fired a shot straight through the kneecap of the savage, who subsequently dropped his crowbar and fell over screaming in agony.

He cradled his knee in his hands whilst tears washed paths down his dirty face. "YOU FUCKING VAULT DWELLING CUNT! WHEN I GET THE CHANCE IM GONNA-" he froze when he felt the cold steel of my pistol on his forehead.

"Be quiet!" I whispered sternly. I could hear a female voice calling from down the street.

"Iron Dog! Where are you? What's going on up here?"

I made eye contact with my hostage. "Are you _Iron Dog_?"

He nodded…

I sighed. "I'm sorry."

The savage's eyes bulged when he realized the implication of my apology. Before he could scream for help, I planted a bullet in his brain. He lied down on his back, a pool of blood collecting around his head.

"Iron Dog! Is that you shooting?! What's going on?!"

There was no time to fret so I hastily opened the footlocker, finding a 32 calibre hunting rifle and a few magazines for it. I eagerly grabbed the rifle and fill my pockets with the magazines, before I scurried away out of the house and proned behind some rocks. I began sneaking though the terrain and away from the neighbourhood. After a while I heard the same woman as earlier scream from the place where I killed _Iron Dog_.

Barely half an hour in the outside world and I had already murdered someone. _At least now I know how Amata feels, _I mused cynically. I could still visualize Stevie Mack's head exploding, a shame truly, but I would be dishonest to deny that the overseer's blood sprayed face was satisfying.

After reaching safety, I paused to study my new weapon. The hunting rifle was a wooden bolt action barely held together with duct tape and wire. The words _Ol' Painless _were carved into the rifle's butt, I snorted loudly as I read it. It might not have been the most reliable weapon, but it had character.

As I travelled onwards I tried my best to stay concealed. I always thought that the outside world was barren and purged free of human life, not the only lie ever told by the overseer_. _At least I was reassured that the surface was capable of sustaining life, but I needed to be careful not to run into anymore "raiders".

After crawling between rocky outcrops for a few hours I spotted a settlement, an improvised metal wall, consisting of everything from cars to aeroplane wings. The metallic structure barely stood out in the grey landscape. The faint hum of human activity could be heard from beyond the wall. I circled around the settlement, looking for an entrance whilst remaining hidden. There was no guarantee that the inhabitants would be friendly.

I eventually found the entrance, a metal bailey crowned with two upright plane wings and jewelled by a turbine. Above the turbine was a catwalk, being occupied by a man armed with a sniper rifle. Below, a protectron robot patrolled aimlessly around the entrance. The sniper was wearing some sort of pre-war combat armour. He did not look like he would associate with _Iron Dog_ and his raider companions, but certainty did not conquer me.

I crouched behind a rock out of the sniper's sight. It was noon now and the day had grown hot, whilst I had grown thirsty. _Crawling in the sun all day does_ _that,_ I guessed. I needed to find some water and soon. There were still a few miles to the Potomac River and I doubted that I would make it. My only hope was that the inhabitants of this settlement were friendly enough to share some water. I took my chance.

"Hello there!" I call out, still hiding behind the rock.

The sniper snapped to attention. "Who's there? Show yourself," he responded, scanning the terrain for me.

"I am just a traveller from Vault 101, I'm looking for a place to rest and gather supplies," I divulged.

"That's fine pal. Just come where I can see you and keep any guns ya have, _holstered_."

"I'd rather not. The vast majority of everyone I've encountered today has tried to kill me. So I'm not exactly peachy about trusting strangers."

"You either holster your weapons and come forward, or you take ya travellin elsewhere. Ya hear? We're a peaceful town and we intend to keep it like that."

I am trapped between a rock and a long and dangerous walk to the river. If I comply with the sniper I might be lured into a trap and shot, if I try to keep travelling I would probably die from dehydration. I ultimately decided that being shot was better than dying from dehydration.

"Alright I am coming out. Don't shoot." I strapped Ol' Painless to my back and walked towards the entrance with my hands in plain view, leaving my life subject to the petty movement of a stranger's trigger finger.

"Not so hard is it?" The sniper then turned around and called to someone inside the walls. "Hey Sheriff! We have another vaulty cumin thru."

_Another vaulty? _I pondered as the mechanical doors to the settlement slid open.

"_Welcome-to-Megaton_," the protectron greeted in a robotically monotone voice.

"Thanks," I answered faintly, eying the machine curiously. _Megaton huh? How did this place get that name? And what other vaulty? Dad?_

**Author's note: Hi guys. Seleucus here. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you think this is going to be a predictable Lone Wanderer story, I hope to prove you wrong by creating a more layered main character. I am open to any kind of feedback positive or critical, so please review, follow, favourite or just send me a PM. I promise to respond to all constructive reviews and messages. Cheers!**


	2. Megaton

A filthy pit… that was the initial impression Megaton evoked in me, a communion of shoddy metal shacks filling a crater like a lake of rust. The buildings were stacked on top of each other, with catwalks and bridges connecting the higher floors to one another. An undetonated nuclear bomb constituted the settlement's epicenter, the origin of the town's name became plain to me now.

I realized that my cynicism was unwarranted. Earlier that morning I had assumed that all civilization had been utterly annihilated during the war. Instead I found that civilization had merely been degraded to a more primitive level. In fact my expectations had actually been significantly exceeded. I wondered, _If the former West now looks like the third world, how does the former third world look like?_

My engrossing introspections were interrupted by an approaching voice. "I'll be damned, you're from that vault, Vault 101. I ain't seen one of those jumpsuits in a long time."

I spotted a man walking towards me. He was a shaggy and dark skinned fellow clad in a brown leather duster and a matching hat. He looked like he had been born in the wrong century. Spurs on his boots was the only accessory left desired in his sheriff outfit.

"Hey there, name's Lucas Simms, town sheriff. And mayor too, when the need arises." His deep, assertive voice was consistent with his rugged appearance.

"Uh, good day there." I discovered midsentence that my throat had grown parched and my voice hoarse. "Say, do you have any water to share?"

"Sure thing kid." Lucas Simms reached into a pocket and pulled out a bottle which he handed to me.

I took the bottle and lifted it up to study it in the sunlight. The water had a light brown tint to it and did not look too appealing… but this was no time to be finicky so I removed the cork and began chugging the water greedily. The water felt distastefully metallic as small specks of grime swirled around my mouth, but my need to clench my thirst superseded these trifles. I quickly emptied the bottle and wiped my mouth before spitting out some excess dirt.

"Thanks. I needed that."

Simms studied me curiously. "No problem kid. Say, what's your name?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "My name isn't important. I am just a lone wanderer from vault 101."

"Hm not gonna tell me your name, huh?" Sheriff Simms began stroking his beard, clearly perplexed. "The last guy out Vault 101 wasn't so uptight."

"Who was this other person from Vault 101?"

"An older man by the name of James came through here round dawn. Come to think of it he kinda look'd like you."

_So dad did come here, _I realized. "Is he still around?"

"Nope he left a couple of hours before you came. Why?"

"Simms this is very important. Did he say where he was headed?"

Simms shrugged. "Afraid not, he just sorta came and left. Try asking around Moriarty's, James spent quite a bit of time in there." Simms pointed out a shack on the opposite wall of the crater with a big sign reading "Moriarty's Saloon" mounted on top of it.

"Ok thanks sheriff." I turned to leave but I was interrupted by Simms.

"So why do you need to find this guy?" He inquired.

I looked over at Simms hesitantly "He's my father," I divulged.

Simms seemed surprised. "Oh, well I understand. And by the way if you need to buy food or water head down to the Brass Lantern, and If you need guns or such head up to crater side supply," Simms explained pointing out a couple of buildings.

I nodded and started walking down a path leading to the floor of the crater.

* * *

On my way I passed a strange two-headed creature, it looked like a mutated cow… I gave it a wide berth to stay safe.

Soon afterwards I found Megaton's center with its defining center piece, a dark grey undetonated C-23 atomic bomb produced by Vault-tech industries bathing in a small pond. It was a device that had helped destroy the old world and just standing in the presence of such power was surreally unnerving. The area around the bomb otherwise was bustling with people. The Brass Lantern food store which Simms had mentioned was packed with people, whilst a hermit was standing in the pond around the bomb giving a speech to a likewise assembly.

It was dumbfounding how all these people were so nonchalant about the huge destructive force that could vaporize them any second. Eventually I became noticed and people started pointing at me and whispering among themselves, my blue jumpsuit obviously giving my origin away. I had lingered too long and began walking on.

Before I reached a path leading up to Moriarty's Saloon, the hermit from the pond jumped in front of me. "Good day traveler. Would you like gain salvation from Atom, the lord of glow?"

The Geiger teller on my PIP-boy started clicking as soon as the hermit had approached me, _clearly been hanging around the bomb too much. _

Not being interested in joining a cult, I declined his offer curtly. "No thanks."

I tried to walk past him, but he grabbed my wrist. "Please, give your body to Atom my friend. Release yourself to his power, feel his glow and be divided."

"Get the fuck away from me!" I shouted as I pushed the decrepit old man to the ground. I shot him a glare that described my next retaliation if he persisted better than words could.

The man cowardly crawled backwards to the safety of his flock where he was helped to his feet. I turned around and walked on.

The man yelled a couple more persuasions after me "You will rue this day you rejected Atom! He's coming with the clouds! And every eye shall be blind with his glory! Every ear shall be stricken deaf to hear the thunder of his voice!"

"Fucking nutcase," I whispered to myself.

After ascending up the footpath, I arrived outside Moriarty's Saloon. I wondered, _What was dad doing in there here?_

**Author's note: This was a fairly short chapter, but I feel it gives the story a good fluidity. If you have any thoughts please let me know, I promise to respond to every review and personal message. Follows and favorites will be much appreciated and will motivate me to continue this story. **


End file.
